I've been ready this forum for a few weeks now and would like the advice of the kind people on here.

 

Just a quick background briefing, I'm 26 currently working for a family flooring firm and I'm looking into something I'm good at as a sideline and to potentially develop. I'm self taught in Corel X2 Paint Shop Pro and again self taught in Dreamweaver to what I believe to be a below average standard and after speaking with my girlfriend I've decided to take the next step rather than just talk about it. I've decided to learn how to use Photoshop and Dreamweaver and a few other programs properly by attending adult learning colleges throughout London. Here come the questions:

 

1) I've enrolled on to a Photoshop for beginners course in July. Would you recommend I do this course as Photoshop is better than Paint Shop Pro or do you find them similar?

 

2) I will be enrolling on a course for Web Design and Flash in September. Are there any other programs I should learn to use other than Photoshop/Dreamweaver/Flash?

 

Thanks for your time and I would appreciate all the help I can get.

Hi there

 

I attended an evening course for 5 weeks for dreamweaver and photoshop and came away with a bit of knowledge about both but it was what i did in between the lessons off my own back that really got me flying. I dont neccesarily thing you need to spend your hard earned cash on a course because there are so many resources online that do an awesome job, cost nothing and can be done at whenever you like. Furthermore, use this forum and there are some uber intelligent folk on here that are always happy to help.

 

Back to dreamweaver:

 

When i started to learn a very short while ago most people suggested bypassing Dreamweaver altogether and first learn how to hand code using a text editor. By doing this I am learning much faster about the subject and i dont have the burden of also having to learn to use the massive program that is Dreamweaver.

 

Good Luck what ever you try to do:

 

Here are some excellent resources that ive found really usefull:

 

HTMLDOG

W3Schools

Wickhams tutorials

Thanks you for the reply.

 

Like you said I have done my best work teaching myself but my honest opinion is that going on a course will channel my thoughts to the right areas and in effect really teach me how to learn correctly rather than pick up bad habits from teaching myself.

Do you know php? I think this language is good.

Do you know php? I think this language is good.

 

I don't know PHP, I've used Dreamweaver before but used it to my advantage as I'm not clued up with how to make a website just by using codes.

 

The advice I need really is what do I need to learn basically? Then I will go and try my best to go and learn it.

Just giving it a little bump, I'm still fishing for advice.

The advice I need really is what do I need to learn basically? Then I will go and try my best to go and learn it.

 

From my personal experience I wasted probably two years learning Dreamweaver before I relised half it's features were over complicated and just served to confuse me further. I did a Dreamweaver course that taught you how to design sites using tables, wrong! wrong! wrong!... I thought that was fine until I went for a job interview and got laughed at.

 

Really the best thing to do is learn html and css and use the knowledge of people on this forum. Get a basic html editor and learn the basics first. In the long run it will make your life much easier as you'll learn basic concepts from scratch rather than a round about way like I did.

 

By the way, courses are good and get you a lot of knowledge quickly, just take it with a pintch of salt as it's normally one persons (the teachers) way of working and not necessarily the correct way, which I found out the hard way.

Thanks I appreciate that. I have found Dreamweaver to have MANY options and haven't got my head around it all so it's good to know what you have said.

 

I'm definitely going to get on a Photoshop course to learn the basics properly and then let myself go wild on my way to learn the other tips and tricks.

 

The main thing for me is learning the web development aspect and how to learn the codes, again I think I'm going to go on a course to learn the basics and then use online tutorials for the rest.

For someone who know VERY VERY little about coding and what it takes to develop a website, does anyone have any books they could recommend for me to buy/hire from the library?

 

I've found a book A Beginners Guide to Web Design by Wendy Willard, I think I'm going to purchase this and go from there. Any other recommendations would be great.

The best book I bought was 'CSS - The Missing Manual'. You can get into this book with very little knowledge of HTML as it has a recap at the start of it. Get into good practices from the beginning!

I would highly recommend "Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML, Freeman & Freeman"

 

I bought this about 3 months ago, and worked through it over a course of about 2 weeks. It gave me a solid grasp of both XHTML and CSS, and upon finishing the book and moving on, I have found that everything the book taught me - in terms of good practice - have been correct. I got a copy from amazon.co.uk for about £15. Its well worth it.

 

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Just to add, it does have a jokey almost gimmicky feel about it, but what it teaches you is fundamentally important. And it teaches you it well. Its definately a breath of fresh air from your usual stuffy textbook.

I started using Dreamweaver but one major problem that you will encounter is that if something is broken in a site, you won't know how to fix it if you don't understanding the HTML/CSS behind it. If you apply yourself, you could get enough coding experience under your belt within 6 months. I use a pretty basic code editor and Adobe Fireworks for the design work...I did attempt to use DW again recently but I still found it produced bloated, non-compliant code.

 

Whichever path you take, best of luck.

HTML, CSS, and Photoshop are must knows for good web design, and luckily they don't take that long to learn. There are a huge number of resources online like the Lynda.com training videos, that make paying a huge price for a course pretty pointless, when the web can teach you an almost unlimited number of skills for far less money.

 

And yea, avoid Dreamweaver; learning to code things yourself will save you so much time in the long run.

 

Whatever your path, good luck! You can do it.

HTML, CSS, and Photoshop are must knows for good web design, and luckily they don't take that long to learn. There are a huge number of resources online like the Lynda.com training videos, that make paying a huge price for a course pretty pointless, when the web can teach you an almost unlimited number of skills for far less money.

 

And yea, avoid Dreamweaver; learning to code things yourself will save you so much time in the long run.

 

Whatever your path, good luck! You can do it.

 

 

 

 

If you follow this forum you will be well on your way,

 

the members around here are very helpful 

 

 

 

I went on a course... waste of time. Teachers had been assigned by college to teach us based upon the fact that they were IT teachers but knew very little about basic CSS/HTML & Photoshop. I had taught myself more in the 3 months preceding starting the course.

Unless the teachers are specialist in adobe product and have real experience creating websites using the product they are supposed to be teaching, AVOID!

Weather you start hand coding or dreamweaver I dont think will make that much difference as I find dreamweaver helps you too add code initially but you have to edit constantly so will pick up coding along the way. Whoever is teaching dreamweaver will be able to teach hand coding anyway (unless as I've experienced the course is a farce).